


We were ships that sank with wind in our sails

by ifllamascouldfly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s09e12 Sharp Teeth, Extreme metaphor use, Feels, Gen, all the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 16:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1434742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifllamascouldfly/pseuds/ifllamascouldfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to 9x12: Sharp Teeth- "We're family." Except, they're not. Maybe they were, once, but not anymore. Not after this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We were ships that sank with wind in our sails

**Author's Note:**

> This was written when I was suffering from a ridiculously severe bout of writer's block. I was wallowing in the angst. Whoops.

_We're family._

There was a time when that felt like absolution. When the feeling of _we'refamily_ was enough to get them through rough nights that were filled with shitty-motel-pillow-muffled screams and the memories of failed hunts ( _they're all dead why are they dead i couldn't save them oh god_ ). He listened for his brother's breathing, on those nights, matching them to his own, until he could breathe without his shallow gasps morphing into gutted sobs.

There was a time when that was a truth that was never contested, never had any reason to be contested. When they were still young enough for him to climb into his big brother's bed and curl up under his arms ( _i had a nightmare and i can't sleep 'cause all i can see is fire_ ) and Dean would murmur reassurances that, in the light of day, would be weak and baseless. But in the dark, underneath a scratchy not-warm-enough blanket, wrapped up in _family_ , it was enough.

There was a time when that became his only reality. When he whispered it to himself over and over like a prayer, begging to be lead down the right path, to be given a sign, to be forgiven, to be vindicated ( _except nobody's listening not the angels not god not the demons not the devil not my brother_ ), and the pulsing surety of _family_ was all that kept him from just blowing his brains out with a gun. He didn't want to leave Dean like that, didn't want to be responsible for breaking his brother, and besides, brains were a bitch to clean up.

_We're family._

Family was a hug that held them together as much as it tore them apart, simply because it was then that they realized how their hearts beat in sync and their breathing almost always matched, and how their arms slotted over and around each other (like pieces of a puzzle that was never meant to be taken apart).

Family was words that were left unsaid, not because they'd hurt, but because they didn't need to be hung out to dance in the air, their presence (or lack thereof) having been noticed and acknowledged and filed away under the list of silent-words that meant more than any language, human or not, could ever encompass.

Family wasn't blood. It _wasn't_. It was the way they could turn their backs and know that the other was watching out for them. It was the way they closed their eyes for a second, let their guard down for those few precious seconds they needed to just break, safe in the knowledge that the other would simply put a hand on their shoulder in quiet solidarity, or slip a beer into their hands and toast the skies and the stars and the people who they missed every damn second that they were still breathing.

Family was _trust_.

_We're family._

He knows now, even if Dean doesn't, that they aren't.

Not anymore.


End file.
